


Peter and The Bad Trip

by aquarian_sunchild



Category: The Monkees, The Monkees (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, I'm Sorry, I'm so sorry, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 02:19:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1881405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquarian_sunchild/pseuds/aquarian_sunchild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter is trying to protect his friends in the midst of a terrifying situation known as The Bad Trip, but a promise is a promise, no matter how hard it is to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peter and The Bad Trip

**Author's Note:**

> +Inspired mainly by the bit from “Monkee See, Monkee Die” where Peter uses his fingers as a gun to shoot at the villains of the episode. TV!Peter’s relationship with guns fascinates me. Here he is, the hippie-dippie lovechild, but he can shoot with his fingers and spin a gun around all fancy-like. I decided to do something with that little talent and this happened.  
> +As I am not a firearms expert, I apologize for any major inaccuracies related to the subject.  
> I feel like I should apologize for this: I’m so very, very sorry.

He had fallen asleep.

Oh, no. He wasn’t supposed to fall asleep.

Peter lurches his head from the kitchen table, shaking his hair out of his eyes. He glances at the twitching cat clock above what used to be Mr. Schneider’s chair. Fifteen minutes. He had only nodded off for fifteen minutes. He figured that was forgivable. The guys would understand when they came back.

 _If_ they came back.

Peter shakes his head again, this time trying to get that nagging thought out of his head.

· · · – – – · · ·

It had gotten the name “The Bad Trip” because that’s what everyone assumed it was at first. People would watch some long-haired kid drag themselves down the street, groaning and drooling with their eyes rolled back in their head, and simply assumed they had gotten a hold of something they couldn’t handle.

This was before the “Bad-Trippers” started attacking.

They had no set target. The Trippers went after old ladies, fellow longhairs, even the cops. And nothing could stop them, from teargas to bullets…unless it was a direct headshot. It was like they didn’t even notice otherwise.

Peter remembers watching the news one night with the rest of The Monkees on their tiny television set. No one would blame the reporter on the scene for stumbling over his words. Downtown Malibu was turning into a war zone. Shattered glass from broken windows littered the streets, and smeared trails of blood showed where Trippers had slowed to a halt when the gunfire finally overwhelmed them.

Peter recognized the front of his favorite bookstore, My Back Pages. The cameraman zoomed in on the storefront where a young woman crouched on the balls of her feet, looking about the same age as him and the guys. Her back was turned so the camera couldn’t catch her face, but Peter could tell she was hovering protectively over something in her hands.

From off-screen, a cop in riot gear yelled at the news crew to leave. The reporter attempted to explain the situation to his colleagues who were safe in the newsroom, but he went silent when the cops started swearing behind him.

The girl had turned her head. A shock of red blood stained her grey face. The mutilated head in her hands dropped to the ground, forgotten. She straightened up and began to lurch forward before the camera hit the ground and the screen went black.

Peter couldn’t sleep for days after seeing that. But Mike had an idea, like always. They were going to use Peter’s sleeplessness to their advantage.

Peter has been watching the cat clock for what feels like ages. It was almost midnight. The others were supposed to be back soon. He didn’t like this part of the night, when the minutes start to tick by far too slowly and his head fills with worry for his friends. Peter hates when the feeling of hopelessness drift into his mind. He tells himself that the guys will be back by midnight. They always are. He focuses back on the clock.

The cat looks left.

The cat looks right.

The cat looks left.

The cat looks right.

· · · – – – · · ·

The band had learned about Peter’s unique shooting ability when they spent the night in that creepy mansion with Ellie. Peter wasn’t even aware that he could do it. He just pointed his finger, clicked his tongue behind his teeth and hoped for the best.

When The Bad Trip started spreading outward and the beach crowd began to clear, Mike gathers the band together and tells him of his plan.

The county-wide evacuations were meaningless in Mike’s southwestern desperado mind. Unless someone figured a way to contain or cure The Bad Trip, the Trippers would simply follow the evacuees to wherever they ended up. Like trying to hide a fresh steak from a dog. Mike figured there had to be a way to stay at the Pad and fend off as many Trippers for as long as possible, until Micky could reinforce the Monkeemobile and they could try to use it to escape.

Micky interrupts him. “Yeah, but Mike, the only way the goons stop is by getting shot in the head. Even if we could get a hold of a gun, it’s not like any of us would know what to do with it. We’d probably end up shooting _ourselves_ , man.”

Mike says nothing. He just stares at Peter. Micky whispers a low “Oh” and soon three pairs of eyes are on Peter. He gulps back his fear, and only just makes out the words “Okay, Mike. I’ll try.”

Mike started Peter’s practice by flinging plates into the air off the patio. Peter’s fingers had an almost innate ability to hit the target with each throw. Over the next week, the plates become bowls become Micky’s drums become Davy’s maracas until Peter throws up his hands and says “I got it, Mike. I got it. I can do this.”

For a while, there was nothing to do but wait. Peter stays behind to keep guard when Micky, Davy and Mike head out on their food and supply runs (always at night, when the Trippers seemed to slow down somewhat and became easier to evade.) It was just Peter and the cat clock on the wall, waiting for the guys to come back. Nothing else.

Until one night. There weren’t a lot of Trippers in the horde, a dozen at the most. But when Peter heard them groaning and trudging through the sand outside, his blood froze.

Peter’s hand shook as he opens the kitchen window. The Trippers didn’t know he was there; the Pad is elevated above the beach and they’re not smart enough to look up for fresh meat. This meant it would be like shooting fish in a vast barrel. But Peter’s hand was still shaking when he clicks his invisible trigger.

His first shot hits a female Tripper right in her temple. Greasy hair and slivers of skull burst around her like a nova while her paisley tunic and bloodstained jeans thump to the ground. Peter wonders if he should feel impressed with himself.

Once he got started he found that they were pretty easy to peg off. He just had to try and unplug himself from the situation, like he’s watching a film version of Peter Tork blasting the brains out of undead hippies. But when he saw all the kids’ gnarled bodies in a motionless pile in the sand, he couldn’t stop the feeling of bile churning in his stomach.

He did that. He had killed every one of them. He had gone from sporting love beads and flashing peace signs to annihilating kids he had probably played for at The Vincent Van Go Go. He’s a murderer.

When Mike and the guys returned, they found Peter sobbing under the kitchen table and the sink reeking of vomit. Mike gathered Peter into his wiry arms to tell him how proud he is.

Peter didn’t feel proud of himself. He wouldn’t have been able to describe his true emotions at that moment, but there was no pride. This would all be so much easier if he could just numb and not feel anything at all.

· · · – – – · · ·

It’s almost two in the morning and the guys aren’t back. Peter can feel his pulse start to throb in panic. He starts chanting a bit of a mantra he had learned to himself, attempting to keep calm.

_Om mani padme hum…Om mani padme hum…Om mani padme—_

The front door is shaking. Someone or something is behind it, and they’re trying to get in. But the Trippers had never realized he was above them, so unless it was someone who knew…

Oh no.

**_Ohnopleasepleaseno._ **

· · · – – – · · ·

Days after Peter’s first experience with the Trippers, the guys (there’s no referring to themselves as a band anymore) were sitting on the floor by the huge patio window overlooking the beach. Spoons in hand, they each had a can of baked beans that would hopefully last them throughout most of the day, so long as they tried not to over-exert themselves.

"Guys?" Peter’s three friends all looked up at once. He hadn’t talked much during the past few days, so they knew what he has to say is important.

"Okay, listen. I’ve been thinking about it, and…if I end up on The Bad Trip, I um…I want you guys to take me out. Just don’t let me hurt you, okay? I wouldn’t be able to live with that." After he’s done speaking his mind, Peter looked down at his can of beans and found he’d lost his appetite. But it needed to be said.

In a normal situation, someone would have told Peter not to even think of a situation like that and would try to snap him out of whatever depressive funk he was obviously in.

Things hadn’t been normal for a long time.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. “I guess the same goes for me.” Micky agreed, and Davy does too after some thought. All four of them reached a hand out into the center of their cluster, their fingers touching in a quiet agreement.

· · · – – – · · ·

The kitchen window above the sink that had served as Peter’s lookout point for so long shatters into a myriad of tiny pieces. The Trippers were never smart, but they were strong, often stronger than those unaffected by the Bad Trip. Peter knows this, so he knows that he has to get a shot in soon before he’s torn apart and becomes one of them.

The arm is short, but muscular. Soon there’s a blood-matted mop of hair coming into view as well. Peter knows it’s Davy, he just knows before he even sees the lifeless brown eyes.

Maybe if he hadn’t looked Davy in the eyes, this would have been easier to do. But a promise is a promise, even if it is made over cans of baked beans.

Thankfully, Davy goes down relatively easy, and what’s left of his upper body falls forward into the sink. But it’s not over, because Peter can still hear a violent thumping behind the door.

Davy’s stupid peephole in the middle of the door is punched out by an arm with no hand at the end. The bony stump is flailing, unable to find a way to further open the door. Peter decides he has two choices: Either let the arm flail for what could be an eternity because he knew the Tripper on the end wouldn’t stop with the promise of warm flesh waiting inside or…

It is hands-down the dumbest thing Peter has ever done, and if Mike probably would have smacked him if he had seen it, but Peter swings an arm out to open the door, pulling back into the kitchen before he can be touched. The building anxiety of the evening seemed to have sharpened his reflexes.

A decent-sized portion of The Tripper’s head is gone, but he can tell it’s Micky by the curls that are left. Peter shoots before he can even think about what he’s doing because now so many tears are flooding his vision that he’s afraid he’ll miss. But he doesn’t miss because he never misses and he wishes he knew why he even has this godawful talent that’s turned one of his best friends into a headless corpse on the kitchen floor.

Peter is sobbing so loudly his throat hurts but he doesn’t care. He made a promise to three friends, and the one friend he knows is left would be immensely disappointed if Peter didn’t keep his promise. Peter never wanted to disappoint Mike.

Peter is an idiot for running outside but he has to find Mike and keep his promise. A thin stripe of sunlight is threatening the nighttime darkness on the water’s horizon, and in any other situation it would be a beautiful sight. “Where are you?” Peter yells into the wind with a raspy, broken voice. “Where are you, man?”

Mike is still in the driveway, next to the Monkeemobile, soaking the stones with dead, black blood. His right leg is gone from the knee down but he’s using his arms to drag his tall frame toward Peter. Peter looks down into Mike’s clouded eyes and tries to convince himself that is no longer his friend but just a mindless Tripper.

It doesn’t work. Mike grips Peter’s leg. Peter panics and flicks his fingers. Then it’s over.

It’s just Peter now. A numb husk of what was once a bright-eyed naïve kid from Connecticut. Peter’s knees give out under him and he falls onto the driveway in tears. Everything happened so quickly and now here he was, completely alone. His mother was right. The West Coast really did ruin him, just like she said it would.

And his favorite orange pajamas are wet with blood that’s not his.

· · · – – – · · ·

Peter drags the bodies out of the pad, showers, and changes into clothes that aren’t spotted with dark clots of blood. He sits in the chair across from the cat clock. That damn clock is the one constant he has left, now that he thinks about it.

So.

What now?

Peter ponders his options. He can’t head home, that’s for certain. Mike’s inner cowboy kept them among the Trippers for so long that there’s no way he can escape California now. So why bother? The question reverberates in Peter’s head. In a way, it starts to become an answer. He has no friends to protect anymore, so why bother? He has no way of getting out of this mess, so why bother?

The cat looks left. Why bother?

The cat looks right. Why bother?

The cat looks left again. Why bother?

Peter takes a deep breath. He decides he’ll stay. More than that, he’ll venture out to the beach again. He’s going to do as much as he can to make himself a target. He made a promise to his friends, and now that he’s kept it, why bother fighting back? It just isn’t in him anymore. And hey, he might as well make himself useful to some brain-hungry Tripper.

It wasn’t too long ago that Peter was wishing that he could go numb and feel nothing at all. He never got that wish, but right now, he was awash with a strange sense of…well, relief.

He could live with that.

_****_

**El Fin.**


End file.
